TheCable

Okechukwu Enelamah, minister of industry, trade and investment, says the federal government is correcting policies that affected manufacturers in 2016.

Enelamah said this in an interview with CNN at the inaugural Commonwealth trade minister’s meeting in London.

“Some policies we passed affected manufacturers in terms of their raw materials and we are correcting those policies now,” he said.

“We want to discourage dumping and bad practices that happened in the past. But we need to do it in a way that does not hurt local manufacturing.

“If we create the right conditions, foreign investors will come back in a big way.

“People are interested in Nigeria, and the infrastructure projects we have can bring in investment. We must implement policies to create market confidence.”

Enelamah said the Commonwealth meeting was not an avenue for exploitation of former British colonies by Britain like critics have said.

“My experience so far with Britain and trade secretary, Liam Fox, has been very equal and collaborative, I don’t sense an imperial mindset,” he said.

“Any agreement would have to be a 21st century agreement, accounting for where countries are today, not where they were 100 years ago.”